45 years old, with a body shouting “I have a desk job,” I was near the top of a thirty-foot telephone pole before I thought to be afraid. I’d come with other youth program administrators to learn team-building activities at the Project Adventure Ropes Course in Beverly, MA. My small group had already engaged in a number of physical challenges. Today’s trip up the “Pamper Pole” was the final test.
With a climbing harness and a belaying rope held securely by my team on the ground, I no longer feared falling. But laying my hand on top of that pole, surely no bigger than a dinner plate, there suddenly seemed a real possibility of failing. I wasn’t sure how to get from my bent climbing position to standing upright on top. And if I failed to stand, I had no chance to succeed at the ultimate goal: leaping across six feet of open air to catch the bar of a trapeze.
I wanted that chance. Drawing my lower leg up the side of the pole with sloth-like precision, I eased my foot onto the top. Frozen in that collapsed crouch, I feared the muscles of one leg would not be strong enough to lift my entire body. But I wanted my chance to catch the trapeze. So, imagining a thread connecting my head up to the heavens, I pushed my foot against the wood, slowly straightening my leg until both feet were on top, my head erect, my arms outstretched for balance.
I’d like to tell you the cheers from below redoubled when I caught the trapeze, but I missed it. Even so, I will always remember that moment on top of the pole. Nor ever forget the power within me to give myself a chance to succeed.